The Wonder Years...the joys of growing older

"You will never grow old,
While there is love in your heart,
Time may silver your golden hair
As you dream in your old rocking chair
So keep my love in your heart, my darling
Remember the love tales we told.
For with my love in your heart, my darling
You will never grow old!"

I remember when I hit my 30’s I thought my life, as I knew it, was sort of over. In India, the moment you are married, you are addressed as auntie, and after getting married at 22, I had been in that boat for quite some time. The title sort of debilitates and ages you. And then before I knew it, I was turning… thirty? How could that be possible? I hadn’t lived my glorious years as yet. In my opinion, life after thirty was a limbo-like period of life, where no one turned around to take a second look at you , where you would have to stop wearing trendy clothes and hide behind mommy jeans and XL tees instead and where everything would start heading south. I saw myself buying hair colour and skin ageing creams furtively at the local drugstore and calling everyone darling and dear, because I wouldn't remember their names. Yes, 30 would definitely be a period of uncertainty leading up to the horrors of certain old age.

And here I am an old, wizened woman, living all alone, surrounded only with her cats for company. That is if I didn’t drop dead with the stress of my, what-if’s, before that.

And then... the 30’s turned out to be quite cool and thoroughly enjoyable. The 20’s had been nothing in comparison. I traveled a lot, made a lot of friends, had some great jobs and came into my own. There was nothing of the previous angst when I came closer to my 40’s and I looked forward to things getting even better; which they did. I had got into my stride and had hit the floor running.

And now the 50’s beckon invitingly… Just a year more to go.

A recent study in the US where some 340,000 American men and women aged between 18 and 85 were surveyed, found, overall feelings of well-being improved as people passed middle age. Stress and anger reduced and worry declined after the age of fifty. Variables such as having young children, being unemployed, or being single did not affect age-related patterns of well-being. The researchers said that when people reach the landmark age, their stress, anger and worry fade gradually and feelings of happiness start to rise.

Dr Arthur Stone, one of the authors of the study, said one would think that as chronic illness threatens, life would get worse but that was not the case because people didn’t focus on the threats. They focused on the good things in life like family and friends. These feelings of well being increased in the fifties all the way up to the eighties. Hurray for that. According to the researchers, older people also displayed an increased ability to self-regulate their emotions and view their situations positively and recall fewer negative memories than younger adults.

This backs up a British study that shows that happiness is U-shaped over LIFE…highest when young, bottoming out in middle age and then again rising. People start accepting their limitations and are just happy and thankful for what they get.

The cliché, fifty is the new forty, has been making the rounds for sometime now and has helped people in their fifties see themselves as young and raring to go. Children have grown up and left the nest. One is at the peak of one’s working life and can afford to spend on certain luxuries…travel, entertainment, the good life. Plenty of people tend to get into volunteer work, which has its own feel good factor. This is sometimes that stage of life when people decide they have had enough of the humdrum, being responsible routine and that they need to do something for themselves, and so they kick over the traces and go out and do something totally unique, even bizarre at times. It is like their last hurrah to the world.

Remember the movie, The First Wives Club and how it struck a chord with women across the world..??

With the introduction of healthier lifestyles, better health care, and the fact that the baby boomers are living it up like there's no tomorrow…could you imagine women having babies well into their 50’s and in some cases even the 60’s? Now they have beauty contests for women over 50 and these women certainly don’t look like they have switched to Mommy jeans.

Life seems to be so much more fulfilling and satisfying and the 50's no longer a number that people dreaded. If I had the choice of going back to my 30’s or even my 20’s, would I do it…I do not think so. Instead of looking back with regret, I would rather look forward in anticipation of better things to come. Each birthday of mine, which I rarely celebrate in the time honoured sense of gifts and parties and cake, is a milestone of measuring my progress in life. The changes in my own attitude, my growing tolerance for those who think differently, my burgeoning optimism about life and the acceptance of all its vagaries…. each birthday just adds to it.

I am sure any youngsters reading this would think, now that is one broad over the hill talking through her hat. How can life be better at 40 and 50…but believe me, I am on that side of the hill and the view just keeps getting better and better. I am not quite there yet. It has been a slow climb, but I am getting there. It is not as if my 20’s and thirty were not good years…I did have my fair share of the rollicking times, but I think the indecisions, the responsibities and the angst overshadowed a fair part of it.

I asked a few friends a few days ago, if they did not know how old they were, how old would they say they felt. Most of them in their 50’s said, they felt very young, except for a few aches and pains.This includes both men and women.

Mid-life crises, menopause, andropause be damned- drink life to the lees, live life to the fullest.

One of my favourite soaps used to be The Golden Girls and their zest for life. I think one of the most important lessons we learn in life is that good friends play a large part in making life worth living.Hold on to them, treasure them, whether they are virtual or in real life.

This is what I hope will be my last hurrah…..thanks to Frank Sinatra for one of the most inspiring songs ever written and sung.

And now the end is near

And so I face the final curtain,

I’ll state my case of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and ev’ry highway,

And more, much more than this. I did it my way.

Growing Older

When did I get old?

It shouldn’t have happened so soon.

I woke up in the morning

and with the spouse tried to spoon.

But by the time he put on his dentures,

the passionate mood had waned.

I was having a hot flash

My internal weather had changed.

My mind sometimes goes a wandering

And forgets it has to return

I put something in to bake

And remember when I smell it burn.

I look at the comments on this hub

And wonder what am I supposed to do

Did you just write to me?

Is it my turn to reply to you? ;)

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, The Summing Up